


Equal Embodiment

by Doodlana



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Gen, Multi, Nanotechnology, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 03:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11394525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doodlana/pseuds/Doodlana
Summary: Years in the future, but not many, nanotechnology has advanced into regular use in medicine, and society has moved into large, walled-off cities to increase functionality and efficiency.The story follows Dirk Strider, one of the employees and developers at Alpha-Tec Laboratories, through a series of discoveries, accidents, incidents and peculiar changes in his life after he's forced to rush one of the developing nanobot-vaccines.





	Equal Embodiment

"No, Rox. You won't get robot babies if you inject them into testicles."

"Then what _are_ you going to get?"

"Ruined testicles. Maybe impotence."

Cue giggling.

"Nice, now I know what to do with my exes," she said with a smug little smirk and squeezed a small syringe-full of slightly transparent green fluid into a large petri dish on the steel table she was standing behind, making sure it was equally distributed around the bottom of it. Her hair was pulled back into the smallest ponytail, tips sticking out like a little palm tree that everyone loved to nag her about, but that was a safety precaution in the laboratory, no loose hair allowed. As per the same regulations, she also needed to wear goggles and a neat, white labcoat that hung off her a bit loosely, seeing as it was a little too big for her shoulders. Stupid unisex labcoats, they never really fit.

"Dirky, hand me the electrodes, please," were her next words, voice sweet as she held her hand out and waited for the electrodes to be put in her palm by her labmate, who was still hooking said electrodes up to an electrical source, placing them in her palms afterwards. They were about the size of a pen, resembling it as well, except with a metal tip while the rest was insulated with plastic, so as to protect from electrical current and not cause any unwanted accidents due to surprise with shock. Safety was a serious matter, especially in a laboratory. She carefully pressed the electrodes against the bottom of the petri dish, submerging the metallic part into the strange fluid and holding them there, not next to each other of course, but on opposite sides of the dish, then turned to Dirk again. "Fire it up!"

Dirk turned the little box generator on, then turned his attention to the petri dish, in which the fluid slowly started to glow, eventually growing to a bright emerald green which glowed constantly, without interruptions. "Seems stable. Set it to pulse," Roxy said with a much more serious tone, concentrating to see if there were any parts that had dimmed in the fluid, and Dirk turned a little knob on the box, which had set a pulse to the current, making the fluid blink in intervals of one second. It sure was pretty to look at, the glow flowing from the positive cathode to the negative anode in little waves both Dirk and Roxy observed with interested, analytical eyes.

Observation and analysis took a keen eye, or, in this case, a pair of keen eyes, and Dirk made a few a few checks and notes on the clipboard they had on the table, next to 'Electrolite stability', 'Consistent during constant flow' and 'Consistent during blink flow'. This test was going smoothly, just as planned and just as wanted, which gave the two a real boost in excitement and morale. But it wasn't over, they still had to test it on other things, pass all the said tests until eventually, a real human subject would be brought before it. 

What exactly were they working on? The answer to that was a much more complicated one than what anyone else would say, only they knew how to properly explain it, but, for the simplest of people, they used the term commonly known as nanobots. For a long while, people had tried to repair bodies and cure diseases with long procedures, slow medicine and a large amount of supplies. The scientific breakthrough that said that nanobots could be used for medicine, was a newer thing. It opened up a world of possibilities for doctors and scientists alike, let them explore robotics in a way that had never been done before.

This theory had emerged a little less than three years ago, and most neuroscientists and microbiologists were now working on producing cures and ailment methods through this advanced technology. None had proven as advanced and as successful as Alpha-Tec, the institute-hospital-laboratories that Dirk and Roxy worked at, along with a few other people. By a few, that would mean a lot. Alpha-Tec was established about five years ago, when a pair of ladies, award winning scientists, decided they wanted to distribute their knowledge to more helpful fields, mostly focused on medicine.

One of them was named Harley, an older miss, and had been conducting her research since her younger times and contributing to science for many a year, eventually succeeding to become one of the leading microbiologists in the world and teaming up with the leading neuroscientist, Miss Lalonde. Lalonde was a much younger lady, more sophisticated, but just as eccentric as Harley, and together, they made the most successful duo since the very discovery of nanomachines. They understood the capabilities, the options that they had, the innovations that they could bring forth with them in so many fields, and so, Alpha-Tec was born for their research.

Both of them had children to attend to on the side, Harley a grandson and Lalonde a daughter, who both ended up in the sciences, not by force, of course. The genes made what the genes made, and the two kids were now working in the institute, under their watchful eyes and full of enthusiasm for their field.

"Turn it up," Roxy said, having been carefully observing the blinking fluid and holding the electrodes steady inside it while Dirk set the generator to a higher voltage. If the nanobots could survive a voltage too high, there was a danger that they couldn't be deactivated and would stay in the human body, causing damage instead of repairing it and possibly proving lethal in the long run. This was still something they had yet to prevent and most of the previous experiments either blew up in their face, or refused to deactivate, so they were forced to completely destroy them.

The fluid continued to glow without dimming even a little, still in one second intervals, which was a good sign and showed that the bots were still maintaining their stability. "We'll take it through the harder tests tomorrow," she spoke again and Dirk, on cue, turned the current off and she took the electrodes out of the petri dish. Due to regulations, those needed to be specially cleaned, so she took them out of the lab and to the separate disposal room, where she would hand them into safe hands.

In the meanwhile, Dirk put the generator and wires away, storing it all in a little cupboard they had for equipment other than glass cups, tubes and various other things. His eyes turned towards the clock, which was lazily ticking away as he removed his goggles and let them hang around his neck like a necklace, since they were attached to a string, then removed his latex gloves and tossed them away. The time was around five in the afternoon, and he could have a little breather from work now, simply sitting down at the table and filling out the blank spaces on the clipboard.

On the top was the name of the current project, which bore the name of '31-H', a way of keeping track of compounds that Harley and Lalonde had started years ago. Dirk never really found it practical, but it worked, somehow, and he could still manage to find whichever one he was working on, or needed for comparison. The numbers represented entirely different approaches on the separate experiments and drugs, different builds in the compound entirely, whereas the letters were similar ones in the same numbered series, with minor adjustments. When they ran out of options for the compound or got to the end of the alphabet (which, as Dirk recalled, never actually happened), they moved on to the next number. As much sense as that made.

Dirk's writing was interrupted by a slide of mechanical doors opening and a pair of hasty footsteps echoed down the hallway outside of the laboratory, stopping every few seconds, then continuing, and stopping, and continuing, until there was knocking on the laboratory door, which opened not even a second after the last knock, and a small, black haired young lady peeked her head inside, cheeks rosy from all the running around she had been doing. She stepped inside once she registered Dirk sitting there, giving an exasperated breath and pushing a few pesky curls of hair away from her eyes. He had recognised her by her walk anyway.

"Goodness me, finally," she exclaimed and stepped towards Dirk, seeing as Roxy was nowhere to be seen at the moment, then braced a hand on the table to lean onto it. Her face was so adorably round, with plump cheeks and those red, oval glasses just making it seem ever rounder and, come to think of it, everything on her was just as cute and round as her face. Dirk liked to think of her as their mother, or their grandmother even, a nice lady that was always cheerful, always took care of everyone and sometimes brought cookies and muffins to work. Needless to say, many other coworkers agreed with that.

"Dirk, be a dear and let me borrow your storage key," she practically pleaded, and Dirk quirked an eyebrow at her a little with just the slightest hint of questioning in his eyes, but she just went on, "mine is currently at home, having a lazy afternoon on my desk because morning Janey is a forgetful Janey, and those little kids we've got on the first floor aren't going to get their tetanus shot magically injected by the doctor fairy!" 

Hands dug through the labcoat pockets until they found a bundle of keys kept on a ring and with a few little keychains, mostly promotional garbage, and Dirk flipped through them until he found one labeled with '1st F. Storage' and held it out for Jane to take. "It says 'return me' on it," he added as she practically snatched it out of his hand and was already halfway out the doors, only yelling an 'of course!' back. It'll probably end up with him needing to remind her about returning his keys at the end of the week, he was sure of it.

Roxy returned about a minute later, goggles hanging from her neck on a string, and her blond hair loose on her shoulders, which was probably already a safety hazard for their boss, but so was their breathing, so neither of them could've cared less. Dirk filled the remaining information he could in on the clipboard, while she took her phone out and checked the time. "Dirky, you gonna go home?" She asked and, indeed, it was about time to go home, five minutes to four in the afternoon, which he was definitely looking forward to, and he nodded in her direction. For some reason, she felt the urge to nudge at him when he pushed the clipboard away from himself and clicked his pen, she always did that. "When are you going to start using computers for that?" Dirk only sighed and tried to push her away. Always with the computers.

Technology had advanced a little, yes, but he wasn't just going to put all their research onto a tablet, what if it malfunctions? Dirk always had that in the back of his mind, and sure, he did love technology and all that it could offer, but it was a risky move in case their data was accidentally erased. Or that was just a thought his other colleague implanted into his brain, that guy always had a thing or two to say about computers. "You know the answer," he simply replied and smiled at her, head tilted back a little bit.

In one sudden moment, right after those words, the door burst open, and there was a loud, hiss-like shout as soon as the door hit the wall. One of the reasons they pushed the cupboards a bit away from the door right there. "Lalonde! Strider! Where do you think your asses are going?" Oh boy. The man that stepped in was probably a little older than the two, holding a tablet in his hand and dressed in a suit, rather than a labcoat, black, an awfully green tie hanging around his neck and an almost scrawny physique that barely fit it. No one pointed that out though. His hair was neatly shaven, except for a thin stripe of dark brown hair down the middle, and he always said he had it like that due to the safety regulations. Nonetheless, he was the boss here, and no one said a word of how he looked to him.

"Oh can it, Caliborn. It's a minute until our shift ends," Roxy said, leaning back against the table and crossing her arms as she gave him an unamused look, not at all afraid of him. So what if he decided to try and fire her? Having a mother that co-owned the company was a big plus when you had a tyrannical boss a tier above you. His ears would be puffing steam if they could then, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed with rage. Once he took a few breaths to calm himself so he wouldn't scream in anger, he finally spoke again. "When was the deadline for number," he paused, looking at the tablet in his hands to check the said number, "thirty-one?!" His eyes jumped from Roxy to Dirk, then back again a few times, before finally, the two shrugged casually and he nearly screamed afterwards, but only a dissatisfied groan came out of his throat. "You get this done by the end of the week, got it?" He hissed at them, then turned around and stomped out the door, which he slammed behind himself. Another reason they moved the cupboards.

Dirk sighed once he was gone and shook his head, getting up and removing his labcoat, then hung it on the hooks they had just for those beside the previously slammed door. Except on the other side. "There's no way," he mumbled and Roxy shook her head just like he did before. "Yeah, I know," she said, taking her jacket off her hook and hung up her own labcoat. There was no way this could get finished in a week, not without proper testing at least, the both of them knew, everyone else knew, hell even Caliborn probably knew, but did he care? Probably not. Not that they were going to take his bullshit with such a delicate thing, it was potentially fatal in this stage and no one wanted to repeat what already happened.

The two made their way out of the laboratory after grabbing their bags, towards the elevator at the end of the hallway, waiting for the moving rectangle to get to their floor. It wasn't that big of a building, but jeez, couldn't it get there any faster? Maybe install another one since everyone was constantly using it and it always had at least two other people in it, not to mention it was crowded in the mornings, and don't even get him started on the people that had to transport equipment on carts. At that point, you might as well wait until they got off. If you got lucky, you might get just one other person in it, but Dirk never had the pleasure of that happening. Okay, that one time where they got off at the next floor didn't count in his head.

Finally, the doors slid open and were immediately greeted with a few "hello"s, to which they obviously replied with the same, but the rest of the ride was silent. First, it ascended two floors, then went down three, at which point Dirk was internally groaning, then finally descended the remaining two. Roxy had been on her phone all that time, so Dirk, as nice as he was, had to remind her to finally get off and tell the other person, who was probably heading to the basement floor, goodbye.

The ground floor was much more like a hospital, with the weirdly washed yellow walls, the sort of plastic-y floor that was really great for sliding on with socks, and the fresh smell of disinfectant. Also the sound of kids, because just that day the nearby school decided to get them here to administrate tetanus shots. Okay, they weren't that young, somewhere around their teens and they weren't that loud, but whatever. Dirk never liked kids that much anyway, so all of them were completely annoying to him, with the exception of a few he knew personally. Those were still alright.

Roxy had already gone off to probably find Jane or Jake, and Dirk followed suit, letting her go ahead since he wasn't much of an enthusiast about running. His eyes didn't linger on anything specific, just glanced around the corridor, the waiting room, another corridor and then his group of friends. The only one he hadn't seen today until now was Jake English, a tall, slightly darker skinned boy, nearly a man in his eyes, with jet black, messy hair, glasses, and the goofiest smile and sense of humor one could imagine. Dirk wouldn't want him any other way.

"Diiirk, c'mon, move your slow ass, I wanna catch the next bus outta here today!" Roxy called out to him, followed by a giggle from the other two, so he had to follow the order or suffer more ridicule. Not to mention, he was holding them up now, and that could end up in him getting scolded. Possibly even by an angry Jane. He quickly delivered her a hug though, just to appease her, or, the other obvious reason, because a goodbye hug is a pleasant goodbye.

"I'll give you your keys back tomorrow, I promise," Jane quickly said, and he nodded at her with a smile. "I sure hope so, I need to access the storage even more than you do," he joked, nudging her playfully before she swatted at his arm. His attention was then taken by Jake.

"Come down from your castle, prince charming?" He asked, followed by his distinct little giggle that Dirk adored so much. It really brightened his days. Without a comment on that, Dirk just shrugged, and Jake had his arms around him in the next moment that the blond had registered what was going on.

"You and your bear hugs." The Strider chuckled softly, to what Jake replied with a quick, tactical peck on the cheek(!). One-nill for English. "Hey, it's not the last time you're seeing me, Yogi," he added, returning the affectionate smooch with his own, this time tactically placed on Jake's nose, for which he had to lean up a little, silently damning Jake for having that extra inch on him. As much of an inconvenience it was, he still wouldn't want him any other way.

"Yo, mama bear and papa bear, I gotta catch me a bus," Roxy cut in and nudged them a little to make them wiggle and step apart finally, but not without a return jab from the both of them. She huffed at them and rolled her eyes, then saluted the group after saying goodbye and headed out into the streets behind the large, sliding glass doors. Jane had also given Dirk a warm little hug before hurrying back to tend to the noisy and impatient children in the adjacent hallway behind her.

"I'll see you tomorrow, love," Jake said, the adoration of the word making Dirk smile at him and then lean up again to steal a chaste kiss off of Jake's lips. The expression in his emerald eyes was sincere, and it couldn't be more obvious that the man loved him, unless his irises were to form a heart shape. Maybe with just the right genetic tweaking, it could be achieved in the future, but that wasn't Dirk's expertise, and he wouldn't want to conduct experiments in genetics just for the sake of changing his boyfriend's irises into the shape of a cartoon heart. Lenses could do that already, and they could do it well enough.

"Bye, babe," Dirk said and they parted, Jake hurrying off to help Jane keep the kids busy and calm, while he turned towards the doors, fastening and adjusting his bag over his shoulder before stepping towards them and stopping at a little machine on the wall beside them. He had to clock out, of course, and he pulled a key-card out of his pants pocket, which was secured to one of the belt loops with a little bit of string. The key-card itself was actually a mini-computer, only used to process working hours and identification outside of work, very durable. In fact, the tough and thick screen actually made it hard to see the letters sometimes.

[SURNAME, NAME:] Strider, Dirk  
[AGE:] 22  
[EDUCATION:] Medical technician, graduated  
[OCCUPATION:] Nano-medicine development, laboratory technician  
[RESIDENCE:] Outer ring, NW Zone, Residential C1, 13th Ave., 4th Street, Building H (NW-RC1-13-4-H)

[TAP FOR PHOTO ID]

In his opinion, the residence labeling system was excessive, but well-organised. The machine gave a beep after he pressed the card to its sensor, then walked to the doors, which slid open to let him out into the street.

Topaz eyes turned skyward as Dirk exited the building. The air was still and stagnant in the streets between the tall, gleaming buildings, a few gulls and crows coasting almost spitefully upon the breeze above the city. A sigh as his eyes were drawn back down again to the streets of the Lower or Ground Levels where most of the population lived. Now wasn’t the time for sightseeing though, he had a germ infested death conveyor to catch, more commonly known as a bus.

Stepping down the few steps that led up to the doors he'd come out of, cautiously, he made his way down the street, careful not to bump into anyone, lest they try to whack him across the head, eventually emerging at a large, busy road full of cars, old buses and a large crossroad. Looking to his right, the main road was slightly curved, disappearing into a long right turn after quite a distance, while, on the left, the same sight awaited. The buildings that were now behind him could be properly seen, tall, shiny and technologically advanced, whereas the ones at the other side of the road seemed to look like slightly shorter apartment buildings, modern at best, stood along small, busy alleys full of shops owned by people who were just trying to make a living.

He turned to the right, following the sidewalk until he found a bus stop, with people, old and young, waiting for the bus just like he was now. No attention was paid to them, and he took a glance around, checking to see if anything had been changed since yesterday. A few clotheslines, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Done with his initial glance, he looked up at the sky, yet a third was covered by the sky-high buildings, and another third by a large wall that stood like a mountain behind the previously mentioned apartment buildings. The entire city was enclosed in it, and this "Outer ring" was the Ground Level, Downtown as they called it, where most of the residents lived, including Dirk and his friends.

However, even this part was divided into two main sections by the road Dirk was currently standing beside. It had ten lanes, five on each side, with their own individual function. The two outermost ones were meant for public transport, which people utilized to travel from district to district. The third and fourth ones were used for business transport, marketing and shipping vehicles, which consisted mostly of trucks and vans carrying loads of important cargo. The inner and last lanes were used by those who owned a private vehicle of their own, and there wasn't plenty of them, mostly because they were likely to get trashed and stolen by barbaric teenagers. This huge road divided the Outer ring into the industrial and the residential zone. In the industrial zone stood the gleaming skyscrapers, bustling with busy people going about their jobs and offering everyday services to those that needed it, just like in any other society. If you needed anything done, all you had to do was find the right service. In the residential zone, there stood the previously mentioned apartment buildings, some a few feet taller some a few feet shorter than others, where one could find smaller shops that sold everything, from home-made remedies to spare robotic parts and even illegal substances if you had the connections. However, it was made for living, and everything was quite neat, decorated with trees, bushes and flowerbeds, clean and cozy-looking. It resembled a smaller city in itself, in a circle around the inside of the wall, for miles and miles and miles.

Sightseeing was cut short, and Dirk's bus pulled up to the stop, a large grey double-decker with a few patches of rust around the lowest part of its chassis, where the wheels would fling dirt and water onto on rainy days. He filed in with the other people that had been waiting for it, and found himself a seat next to an older-looking man at the back of the lower deck, giving him a polite nod at which the man gave him a smile and continued to gaze out the window. At least some people weren't rude. As the bus set off, Dirk pulled his phone out of his bag, checking for any messages he might've gotten in the time he was stuck at work, unable to be reached unless the message was relayed through a superior. As if Caliborn would ever inform him of anything important.

There seemed to be three messages waiting for him, one from Jake and two from his older brother that worked in a different location each day, and barely came home on weekends. Being a manager was a hard job in this place, especially when he had some strange dealings with some higher-ups, and was frequently called to other cities as well. Dirk decided to deal with Jake first.

[Jake English <3 4.08]

Of course, just when he'd left the building.

[JAKE:] I forgot to say: i love you!

Aww. Well, it was a given at that point, but might as well be cheesy if it already brought a lovestruck smile to his lips.

[DIRK:] At this point, our love is declared with nerdy comments and dorky gestures. I love you too though, so you don't get confused.

Dirk remembered how dense Jake was before they even started dating. Not that anything had changed, but he'd developed some sort of affection for even the strangest parts of Jake, his flaws.

The thought was interrupted a little when he saw movement beside himself out of the corner of his eye, and the man that he'd sat next to was turned to him, half-standing. Politely, Dirk stood as well to move away and let him pass, then sat back down, scooting over to the window. If he were to sit on the outer seat, he'd probably get his ass beaten, because it was incredibly rude to take up two seats like that while people, tired people that just finished their jobs and were going home, exhausted and just wanting to relax, stood on their tired legs. Dirk wouldn't dare go against unwritten rules.

The second two messages were from his older brother, telling him about some food he dropped off for him and then that he probably won't be home for another week. Dirk was pretty thankful, for both messages, and put his phone away after sending him a thank you.

Forty minutes passed before Dirk stepped out of the vehicle, onto non-moving ground and back into a busy street. Nothing was different. On the side he got off, similar skyscrapers towered before him, and he then turned to the right to find the nearest underground crossing, the one he always took of course, emerging on the residential side.

Given that the entire city, that is, the Inner ring and the Outer ring, housed almost ten million people, the residential zone was absolutely crowded with people going home, going to late shifts, and just going for walks or about their business. Dirk joined them for a few minutes, walking along the sidewalk bordering the main road, until he reached the thirteenth avenue and boarded a monorail. They ran along every avenue, all the way from the first to the last zone, all the way to the wall, and he bought a ticket to zone C1.

Another half an hour ride later, he got out of the slightly older vehicle, stretching before getting back to street level and walking along the avenue for a little while longer until he reached the fourth street and turned.

Building S was the first one at the corner, and Dirk gave a little sigh, then took the journey of passing all the others before reaching his own, building H, taking his keys out of the bag and unlocking the front door when he arrived. Ascending up the stairs, he twirled the keys in his fingers, and on the top floor, the door labeled "Strider" awaited him to be unlocked. Finally, he entered his cozy apartment.

First was a short hallway in which jackets and coats hung, on the floor, some pairs of shoes, and then an open living space after a few feet. On the left was a futon, a tv, and some cupboards, like a regular living room, on the right a simple kitchen. It wasn't exactly spotless, but it was somewhat clean. Another hallway led to three more rooms, one being a small, compact bathroom, the other two bedrooms, and Dirk headed to his own to toss his bag to the foot of his bed, then straight into the kitchen to get some food.

After eating the Chinese takeout that his brother left for him, he took a shower to clean off the gunk of work and the city air, then retreated into his room. A bed, a desk with a computer and a few cupboards, simple and cozy, just how it always was, and he sat down at the desk.

A few chats and a movie later, Dirk decided it was enough for the day, and at nine thirty in the evening, he turned the computer off and, in the silence of his apartment, brushed his teeth, put on his pyjamas and laid into bed. Without his brother, it was very quiet in the apartment, and he'd been thinking of letting Jake move in, however Jake would have to go through the trouble of moving all of his stuff here, and this, and that, and his nerdy movies... and his posters... and himself...

Dirk's eyes closed as he thought about Jake, his friends, how Caliborn was going to be breathing down their necks for the next week, how his brother was coming back, but first, he had to sleep through one night at a time.

Tomorrow was another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is very much appreciated, do tell me what you think!


End file.
